The Dyslexia Duo: Dr. Margie Gillis on Dyslexia, Structured Literacy, and Why Teacher Coaching Matters

 

Aimee and Melissa introduce their podcast, The Dyslexia Duo, and interview Dr. Margie Gillis, founder of the Connecticut nonprofit Literacy How, which provides coaching support for teachers from pre-K through high school. Dr. Gillis shares her personal and professional connection to dyslexia through family members and explains dyslexia as a neurobiological, hereditary, language-based learning disability often co-occurring with challenges such as ADHD, anxiety, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia. The conversation distinguishes instructional programs from instructional approaches like Orton-Gillingham and alphabetic phonics, clarifies structured literacy as language-structure content plus explicit, systematic, data-driven pedagogy, and discusses universal screeners, diagnostic assessment, and progress monitoring. They address insufficient teacher preparation and professional development, RTI/MTSS implementation problems, COVID learning loss, “dys-teach-ia,” and why districts avoid using the term dyslexia due to service costs, and Gillis recommends books and describes her Professional Learning Series.

 

00:00 Meet the Dyslexia Duo

01:06 Why Margie Gillis Matters

03:05 Interview Begins and Literacy How

04:51 Training Roots and Structured Literacy

08:01 Margie Origin Story and Family Dyslexia

10:25 School Pushback and Defining Dyslexia

19:56 Programs vs Approaches OG Explained

27:43 Structured Literacy and Curriculum Must Haves

32:47 Coaching Teachers and Better PD

39:51 RTI MTSS and the Wait to Fail Trap

47:30 Beyond the Score Report

50:33 COVID Learning Loss Debate

54:29 Dyslexia or Dyslexia

58:28 Why Universal Screeners Matter

01:03:16 Sharing Data With Families

01:08:22 Why Districts Avoid Dyslexia

01:12:24 Training Teachers Better

01:14:44 Advice for Parents Teachers

01:18:41 Book Recommendations Roundup

01:24:33 Comprehension and Vocabulary Focus

01:25:53 Closing Thanks and Signoff